The Big Wedding

The Big Wedding makes Safe Haven feel like great cinema. It even manages to make Identity Thief feel like quality entertainment.

The dialogue mistakes raunchy and vulgar for funny.

The characters are inconsistent, at best, and flat out contradictory of themselves at worst. It is often difficult to believe a character would behave as the film has them act, most especially Topher Grace’s Jared, he who has waited almost thirty years to have sex is now traipsing around doing everything he can to convince a stranger to sleep with him. Right. His “characterization” is the worst, but not the only flimsy excuse for writing. Virtually every character has similar breaks leaving us to question whether the characters were ever more than names on a page meant to get us to the next cuss word or stupid joke.

The actors are not good. But I won’t blame them, other than questioning why so many talented individuals signed on to this project in the first place. What passes for a plot is every bit as bad as the characters and the dialogue, which means no actor could make this material work.

Honestly, I can’t think of a single positive comment to give this one. Does it count if I say Keaton, De Niro, Grace and Sarandon, at various moments, try to act?

Oh. One more thing. Memo to Director Justin Zackham and Casting Director Barbara Fiorentino: Ben Barnes is not Latino, much less Columbian. A brief Google search suggests he is British with Jewish and South African heritage. I have nothing against Ben Barnes; he’s a fine actor. I’m just saying. Why couldn’t you find an actor with Columbian, or at least Latino, heritage to play Alejandro?